How to Beat Competition and Build Strong Customer Relationships -4

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Melody [: 00:00:00

My guest today, Sarah van der Meer, is I would call her a home service unicorn because she has been in the home service industry for the past decade. Her and her husband, Phebe, have a window cleaning company called Dutch Shine. And Sarah started Home Holiday Concepts, which is a rendering software. It does so much more, but it's a software to help people in the Christmas light industry. I think anybody who starts a software company is very brave, and Sarah definitely is one of the brave ones. But they've been very successful, which is very inspirational. I'll tell you a quick story about Sarah. Last year, I had a concussion for 2 months, and my goal was, at the end of the summer, that I was gonna go to a very important trade show that I go to every year.

Melody [: 00:00:51

I had a booth there, and that's where I meet a lot of people for our company home service VA. And so I ended up being placed next to a booth that had one of those, like, industrial sized strong man games where you, like, hit the thing and then the if you hit the bell, you're a strong person. And the people who had the booth, obviously, like, they weren't trying to reconquest me. And I didn't even think about it. I was like, oh, cool. I love that game. But somebody went up and banged on that the mallet on the thing so loudly, and I happened to be right in back. Like, it was in back of my head, essentially.

Melody [: 00:01:33

I wasn't prepared for it. And I ended up getting a stutter, which I'd had during my concussion. So my stutter came back. My brain was like I can't even explain. If you've had a concussion, you understand. But I felt like all of the 2 months of progress I had just made was gone, and I burst into tears. And Sarah and Phebe had been helping me set up my booth, and she went over like a mother bear and told them to stop, I believe. And then later, she was like I don't remember how she said it, but, basically, the way I'm gonna say it is, you know, he's on my shit list.

Melody [: 00:02:11

I don't like him now, like, the guy who kept hitting the thing not caring about my concussion. And she's one of those ride or die friends. She really is. She took care of me during that time, and I'm a person who likes to take care of other people. It's very vulnerable when you have to be cared for, and I just think that really showed so much of who what her character is. She's just such a giving person. She's a mom. She's a wife, a business owner, so many things.

Melody [: 00:02:41

And so I'm excited for you to hear my conversation with Sarah. Hello, business human. Are you a misfit? A person who wants to make a difference in this business world. Are you one of the unconventional? The visionaries? The quiet innovators? The heart centered leaders? The purpose driven, the community builders, the givers, then you are my people. I used to think business was a secret formula to be discovered and followed, but now I know it isn't a set of rules. It's an exciting creative adventure, and I wanna be on that adventure with you. I am your lady of business, Melody Edwards. Welcome to the Business Misfits podcast.

Melody [: 00:03:31

Oh, hello, Sarah van der Meer or van der Meer. However, it depends if you're in Europe or if you're in America. Welcome to the Business Misfits podcast. I am so happy you're here because I adore you.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:03:43

Oh, thank you. I adore you too. And thank you for having me. I'm really excited when you announced you're having this podcast. I was like, this is such a great person to have a podcast because every time I talk to you, you've got all these beautiful little gems that you're imparting, and the world needs to hear

Melody [: 00:04:00

it. Oh, thank you. That's really very kind of you to say. But I do have a first question for you. It's very important. It's the most important question you'll ever answer in your entire life. Are you a business misfit?

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:04:12

Yeah, absolutely. I definitely feel like I do not fit into the classic business person role for the most part. I feel like a lot of business people, especially in the fields that I work in, there's it's very male dominated. They're very ambitious, run for it kind of people. And I have always been kind of the integrator of any partnership that I've been in. And so I'm always thinking through, like, how is this gonna happen? What are the next steps? Is this feasible? And I often am one of those people who would like talk myself out of stuff. Yeah. But I've had to learn to challenge myself to bring both sides of that coin up within me and move forward with business.

Melody [: 00:05:00

Yeah. I feel like you're a lot like me in that way because I felt the same exact way in my areas of business as well, which are pretty similar. It just has always felt like, I mean, maybe I'm slower to put things into place or to adapt to thing like to the changes that other people might just not even think about, But I'm always very stubborn about it. I'm always gonna keep pushing forward. I don't stop. I feel like I've seen that in you as well.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:05:27

I'm definitely one of those people where I won't quit even if it really, really hurts and I'm things are terrible. I just don't like I'm I think I'm competitive to the point where I just can never admit defeat . Yep. And so that's both a curse and a gift. It's a gift because even when things get hard or things don't work out, I'm just kind of dusting myself up, getting back up on that horse and keep going. And at the same time, it's a curse because sometimes you do need to let things go. If something's not working in a certain direction, it's time to pivot and change and do things a little differently.

Melody [: 00:06:06

But that's so hard. It's really I don't know if you meant this. I'm competitive with myself. I don't really feel like I'm a competitive person in the world. I probably am. That's not how I view myself. But I always say nobody's gonna tell me what I can or can't do, not even me. And so I have that internal battle of my brain of like, and yeah, I'll cry for a while.

Melody [: 00:06:28

And then I get back up and I continue on that journey, whatever the journey is.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:06:32

Yeah. I would say, like, for me, it's I'm the oldest of 4 kids and the only girl. Same. I got 3 of her brothers.

Melody [: 00:06:41

Yep.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:06:41

And I think it puts you into this mindset of you are responsible for, like, so many things in your life. You're an example to younger siblings or whatever that might be. And so you just feel like there's so much riding on what you're doing. And the expectation is so high, especially when you're like that first born.

Melody [: 00:07:02

And a girl.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:07:03

And a girl. Yeah, exactly. And so I think I just always felt like the expectations that I had of myself were just up here. Even if my parents weren't necessarily pushing that on me, I was pushing that on me.

Melody [: 00:07:15

Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:07:16

And so I just always wanted to be whether it was on the playground, be as fast as the boys. Yeah. Or if it was, you know, in school, I wanted to be in the top classes. Whatever it was, I wanted to do the best at it. Because there was something that was intrinsically amazing to me about pushing myself to that next level and doing things that I didn't realize I could possibly do. It used to be a distance runner. So it kind of like that same mindset.

Melody [: 00:07:42

Yeah. That's where our stories diverge because I am very happily not a distance runner or a runner in general. But I think up till then, you had me. I felt like, oh, we're twins. Well, so you and I are both moms, you know, we have range of children's ages, but mostly older. I mean, what is older? I mean, mine are 15 and 24. What are your ages?

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:08:07

I've got one that's 13, another one that is 16 about to turn 17, and then an 18 year old. So, yeah, it's kind of like some college, then some kind of middle school, high school.

Melody [: 00:08:18

Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:08:19

Definitely in that same age range for sure.

Melody [: 00:08:21

So I feel like that was one of the things that made me, it made me grow up faster, I would say. So, and also because I'm a mom and a wife and like there are those responsibilities and then there's also all of the house. And I think we both have great husbands. But still, there's something about that that puts a lot of extra pressure on women to also run a business or to have.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:08:46

Yeah, it's a crazy mental load. Like I challenge all of the male listeners out there to ask yourself, do you know what size shoe your child wears? Do you know the names of the teachers that your child has? Things like that, where you just would be like, what's your wife's favorite pizza toppings? So when we're doing things as women, a lot of times we're thinking about all these different things, restoring everything together. And then on top of that, it used to be that women were kind of like stay at home moms, then they started going out into the workforce. And it was like, oh, either you're doing this or this. And now the expectation is you must do both and you must do both incredibly well. Because if you don't, you're not succeeding in life, which is terrible. I mean, I think that's a lot of mental load for women to have on them. I do think that things have changed a lot though, and I am blessed with an incredible husband

Melody [: 00:09:39

Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:09:40

Who is very much in it with me. He's my partner in both business and in family, but it is definitely something where you're trying to get it all done and then you're trying to also not age while you do it.

Melody [: 00:09:54

Oh, yeah, somehow. Oh, I totally feel that. And it's hard. So one of the questions I think about, I didn't even write it down, but something I think about a lot is I don't actually believe in balance in work and life. Because even if I got that balance, what I really want is I want time to drive my kid to the place that they need to be or if they're sick that I can just pick them up, or I can take the go on vacation if I so choose. I want the flexibility to do all of the things while also working. And it's never a balanced thing. In my case, if somebody knows how to do that in a balanced way, I lack the discipline, even though I'm very disciplined.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:10:36

It's so hard to do too, because your business is demanding so much of you on a daily basis. And you don't wanna let people down. So it's just, you know, you've got that portion of it. And then you also know that this time with your family is like, kind of the most important portions of your life.

Melody [: 00:10:52

Yes.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:10:53

And giving your time to that now is gonna be so much more fulfilling on the back end. So for me, I feel like I've had to learn to delegate when delegation has always been incredibly hard for me to do. Like, I always feel like, oh, nobody can do this as well as I can do this. No one's gonna train as well as I can train. No one's going to do these estimates as well as I can do them, whatever it might be.

Melody [: 00:11:17

Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:11:17

And realizing, okay, by having this mentality, I am literally choosing work over my family on a daily basis. And what is that gonna look like when I'm 80? Am I gonna look back and say, oh, man, I got back to that one dude within the next amount of minutes, Or but, hey, I miss my daughter's dance recital. You know, like, you have to look at where your values are. And I feel like you have to really lead by them. And sometimes that means pushing yourself out of the everybody for everything role and doing that delegation because in reality, like, I think our kids and our spouses, they want us to be the best versions of ourselves, the selves that make us happy. There's a reason why they say like happy wife, happy life, and they enjoy being around us when we're in that state. So it's a mutual thing. And I think we just forget to ask and push for the things we need.

Melody [: 00:12:13

Yeah. It's really hard to learn to delegate. That's something I think I've gotten really good at, and that's why I have home service VA my company. And I know that you're really good. You've gotten good at it, and I still fail. We were just talking about it. Like, we still struggle with delegation. Because every time you up level up a bit, the old mindset still comes back of like, oh, how can anybody do this thing? But for me, it's a game now.

Melody [: 00:12:38

I think of how I can delegate things that seem undeligatable, and I'm very successful at it. I still work a lot though for all of this delegation. So there's a part of that which is us being more disciplined about taking the time that I need so that I don't burn out or things like that. That's the part that seems to, it seems to be that I can do really well with delegation, but I forget about the part of like, oh, I made this time. And I need to keep the time and not just fill it with more things.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:13:10

Yeah. I will say I feel like you're the queen of delegation, because like your whole business revolves around helping people to do just that. So I think you're in a really good spot for it. But yeah, I totally hear what you're saying. Like, I feel like especially as you grow in business, as you grow, there's bigger problems or more problems or different problems, and they increasingly require executive function. So when you're at the beginning of your business, the things that are, like, hammering away at you are like, I need to answer the phone, I need to get to this estimate, I need to reply to this email, I need to address this customer's concern. And those are all very delegatable things. And then as you get larger, it becomes more about people management.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:13:54

How are you going to choose your people? How are you going to train your people? You get past that, and maybe you've hired a trainer or somebody else who's kind of handling that sort of stuff. And then you're looking at bigger directional things for your business that ultimately you still need to do. So there's always a little bit of something there. I don't know that I'm ever gonna be completely free of like not having to do anything, but at the same time, I kind of love it.

Melody [: 00:14:21

Well, that's the problem. We love it. The point of delegation is not to just, I guess, become like free completely, but for entrepreneurs, it's so that we get to do the fun parts of business. Like, I wanna do the things that make my brain feel happy. And I love, like, inspiring people and working with my team and coming up with new ideas. And it's I think the thing that I'm looking forward to is, 1, I have a great operations manager now, but we're still figuring things out. You know, it's still a company where we're in we're still a startup even after a couple of years. But then the second thing is I'm really into the idea of taking a month off when I'm not injured or having a surgery, where I just get to be free of business, but it's not an accident, which has happened a couple times and it's not because I have to go do another business for a couple months.

Melody [: 00:15:13

So that's my goal right now is at the beginning of next year, I wanna just take a month away and have it just run.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:15:20

I think that sounds amazing. Like, that's a really big goal of ours for this coming year. My husband and I are celebrating, we call it the year of 20. So we have been together for 20 years as of September. December is our 19th wedding anniversary. So we're gonna kind of make it like one big year of 20 leading up to that 20 years, and we're gonna go to Europe for like a month and see lots of friends and family that we have over there. My husband's Dutch, van der Meer. So I wanna just dedicate that month to that.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:15:52

And I wanted to be in a situation where I'm not picking up the phone, I'm not putting out fires. And one of the things I heard on a convention talk, I can't remember exactly who said it, but they said like, sometimes when you leave, you have to let people put out their fires for themselves.

Melody [: 00:16:10

Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:16:10

There's going to be some while you're gone. And the temptation is I need to call Sarah or I need to call Melody. And if you just let it sit for like, a couple of hours, they usually end up figuring it out. Oh, it was Jeff Lykes.

Melody [: 00:16:26

Yes.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:16:27

That's who said it. And he said that he used to, like, at the drop of the hat, pick up any call that he got from those employees about a problem. And then he started just waiting a couple of hours to get back to them. And inevitably, 98% of the time, they were able to solve it themselves.

Melody [: 00:16:44

Yeah. It's true. That's like my goal for all of my employees, all of the VAs we work with is we're trying to create relationships that are collaborative and not just you do the task. And that's a lot of problem solving, you know, a lot of taking initiative for things and being a good critical thinker. You know, this past year, I took 6 weeks off. I was not involved in the business and I've learned over though it's always an accident that usually brings it like last year, the concussion, it was 2 months off. I couldn't do a thing for the business. It doesn't grow when I'm gone.

Melody [: 00:17:18

And so what we're really trying to get to the point of is being able to grow while I'm gone and also do well, right? Yeah. We can do both of those things at the same time, then it's great. It doesn't shrink when I'm gone either though, and they solve all the problems and everything's cool. I come back to things, but it's not like crazy. So it's totally doable.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:17:38

Yeah, because you're like the face of your company. So people are like, you know, I know when I've heard you speak, I was like, oh, she makes perfect sense. I should do this, but she can't be everywhere all the time.

Melody [: 00:17:50

One of the smartest things I did delegate right up front was my discovery calls with people. And I was able to say, it's because you need to experience what it's like to be what a VA can do and, like, what it's like to talk with the VA and hang out with them. And really it's because I love talking to people, but I get so energy drained by that kind of work and it was very smart of me, I will say that. But that was one of the first things I delegated and she does great in sales. It's just I'm the one who goes and speaks. I'm the one who has booths because I'm here. So I'm trying to we're actually making some really innovative changes. We're gonna try out.

Melody [: 00:18:29

We'll see how it works. I'll let you know next year.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:18:31

Alright. That sounds exciting. Well, hopefully, I'll still get to see you at some conventions. And at the same time, I'm hoping that you're gonna find, like, this person is gonna be able to do this for you so you have more time.

Melody [: 00:18:43

Yeah. I'm sure it'll be more time to do more things that I enjoy, but that's the goal. Do you struggle still with imposter syndrome or did you ever I should ask that. I always assume people do.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:18:55

Literally every single day. So every time I go to a talk, every time I go to anything, I get so nervous because I'm thinking to myself, there's people in this room who I'm about to speak to, who have been in this business for literally decades upon decades, and who am I to tell them that they need anything? They've been doing this way longer than I have. Why am I even in this room? Even though I've been in Christmas light business service business for a decade myself, and I do think I have a lot to share, it sometimes feels like I just pulled this product that I made that was useful to me from out of nothing, and now other people are buying it. You know, like, and so I'm constantly surprised by it. And at the same time, it's been such a wonderful experience because we get emails almost daily for people saying, I love it. It made such a difference. My business has grown because of it. I have a particularly interesting client who he is someone I end up doing a lot of support calls with, and he wasn't super happy with our new rollout because he was so used to the old version that we with what we had.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:20:10

And I walked him through it. We're like, okay, it's gonna be alright. It's gonna be a little bit of a change, but we've got this. And then he came back to me about a month later, and he said, I submitted this estimate to this client, and they said they're gonna go with me because they could tell that I was a much more professional installer because of the rendering I did on your software, and I want it because of you. And so, to me, it's like it was so validating. I knew it worked for us. But at the same time, you know, you just get that feeling of like, do I belong in this room with these other people? And I suspect that a lot of us feel that way initially. Although some guys out there, they're like, I'm a born salesman.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:20:50

I sold jobs when I was 2. And

Melody [: 00:20:53

Yeah. Yes. We have all been in rooms with those people. And I think that's what's made it really hard and probably one of the reasons why I've also felt a lot of imposter syndrome is I just really assume a lot with people. Like if they're telling me they know what they're doing, then they know what they're doing, and that's not always true. In fact, generally, that's not true from what I found. Because the people who know what they're doing don't need to talk about how much they know. And I feel the same way when I'm giving talks.

Melody [: 00:21:23

I just show up as myself, just like you do in your talks, and I'm just showing them what I've learned and how it's worked for me. But it is the coolest thing. At this point, we've worked with 100 of clients, and I've literally changed people's brains about how they think about systems, how they think about training. It's like, to me, these are things that changed my business life and the fact that I could help other honestly sparkly brained ADHD people like me, especially, it's really gratifying and it makes me really happy, and we're changing the lives of the assistants who work with them.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:21:56

Oh, for sure. And I think one of the things I've learned from my clients, at least, whether it be through my service business or my software business, is that the people who end up being really successful in life, it's not necessarily someone who made straight a's in school. It wasn't someone who just simply had a lot of money. It's none of those things. It was the people who have this strong confidence in themselves. They have like a blind confidence that says to themselves, no matter what I do, I'm gonna figure it out, and I'm going to be successful because I can do this. And I think it's so easy, especially when you have that level of imposter syndrome to say I can't, I can't. And I was talking to someone the other day about it and they said you just have to keep telling yourself that you are this.

Melody [: 00:22:45

Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:22:45

And eventually you're gonna believe it and you're gonna validate it every single day. And it really I feel like it's made a difference because things where I was like, should I? Like, no, go ahead and do it. Yeah. If you fall on your butt, it's okay.

Melody [: 00:23:00

Yeah, I think it's great when we fail sometimes because I think that's what makes us trustworthy and reliable. If we don't pretend we don't fail, if we fail and we're in or even like we all struggle, we all have areas of weakness. Let's not pretend that we don't, because nobody has it all together, they really don't. I haven't met a person in business, and there are people who look like they have somehow everything together. Well, they probably have a team that they're not talking about on the backside of things then, because I don't know, it's magic.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:23:32

Well, that and a lot of times when we're looking at people who are doing really well, this is not their first rodeo. They have tried and failed and tried and failed. And then they got to that point where they figured out that system that works for them and how to replicate that with whatever business that they do on that back end. And we're not hearing about the items that didn't work out. We're just hearing about the things that did work out. But I think just taking ownership when things don't go right and embracing that instead of pushing it away, just looking at it as like, how can I make this a learning opportunity? How can I make this better? Yes, you know, this wasn't really my fault, or this wasn't something that this was designed for. But how can I take this, even if it's hard, and use it to my benefit to grow? And that growth mindset, I think just makes a huge difference. And it also helps me to not take things so personally.

Melody [: 00:24:28

Oh, yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:24:29

I remember, like, when we first started our software business, anytime anything wouldn't go right, I'd be like, I felt like I couldn't breathe. Yeah. That's why I'd be freaked out. We gotta do this. We gotta fix it right now. And I just get so panicked. And over time, you know, we continue to improve and do great things. And all the time, we're improving.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:24:49

But I look at people like myself or like you with Home Service VA, and I think to myself, okay, how are we expecting ourselves to be perfect? When you have like huge issues where, you know, all the airports went down because of a security problem, and it blew everything up, and it was from a huge company.

Melody [: 00:25:12

Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:25:12

Right? Like, like, even these really big companies, even companies that have 100 and thousands of staff that are all dedicated to these things, things happen.

Melody [: 00:25:22

Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:25:22

And that's something that we're gonna figure it out, and then we figure out how to be better afterward.

Melody [: 00:25:27

Yeah. And the other thing that I've learned is that, because like you in the beginning, the worst thing that could happen to me is somebody gets mad at me because I failed them. Like, to me, that if I let somebody down, then it's the end of the world. But of course, not everybody is gonna be the right customer for me. Not everybody is going to understand or be able to do things the way that I would present it. Like, it's not everybody is made to work with us, and I'm not made to work with everybody. And so instead of taking on all of that pressure, I kind of allow myself now to understand. Like, I know who is pretty good for us to work with.

Melody [: 00:26:07

And I'm also upfront about how we work. You know, we're never we really wanna take care of people. We don't wanna let them down, but things happen. And when they do, we're gonna be on top of it. And that's just like a normal way that people would want somebody to do business. I think you're like that too. Like we're not gonna pretend it's perfect because it just can't be and it never will be. So there's lots of different lessons I've learned in that, but less on me, less about me.

Melody [: 00:26:32

It's not all about me all the time.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:26:35

No. Well, this is great. I love the back and forth. It kind of reminds me of one of my favorite books called pumpkin plan. The premise of the plan is it's kind of a really big analogy. So pumpkins for professional pumpkin growers, they are constantly culling the seeds that don't produce really big pumpkins and only saving the ones that produce the biggest. So because they're doing this, what they end up with at the end are the biggest and best pumpkins. And the analogy for business is that you need to pumpkin plan your business.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:27:08

So not all your clients are going to be the right clients for you. And most of your profit is probably only coming from about 20% of your clients, and 80% of your problems are only coming from about 20% of your clients, and they're usually not the same percentage.

Melody [: 00:27:23

Yep.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:27:24

So you need to be okay with finding what is that customer avatar that is the right customer for your service or your good and focus on that rather than putting a ton of energy and everything else into trying to make everyone happy because then you're gonna end up with a bunch of clients that are kinda sucking that time from you. They're not going to necessarily adapt well to what you're trying to offer, And it's just not a good fit. I think it applies the same way, whether it's in business with your clients, or actually even with your employees. I always have like a test day for my employees. And I say, you know, this isn't just about me choosing you, this is about you choosing me, and making sure that we are the right fit together.

Melody [: 00:28:13

Exactly. Yeah. I totally agree with that. What is one thing that you wish you had known when you started in business long ago, that you now know and you're like, why didn't I know that? Or I wish I'd known it.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:28:27

It's better to invest in something for where you wanna be eventually, then to try to cheap your way out of something, and then try to grow with a better system later. For the service business, not for HHC, but the service business, like back in 2015, it was such a hard time for us. My husband had his company had downsized. He was an environmental specialist. I was a stay at home mom, you know, running a Girl Scout troop and doing all this other stuff, homeroomom. And so all of a sudden, we were without income, and he had grown up window cleaning. He said, like, why don't we try this? And I thought, oh, my god. We're gonna live with my parents.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:29:13

But it ended up being just fine. We threw ourselves into it. Our youngest had just gone to school full time. And because we were a little bit on that shoestring budget initially, we were, like, tracking our customers on Excel and all this other stuff, And we weren't thinking with the end in mind. And so it was just like, how do we survive instead of how do we thrive?

Melody [: 00:29:37

Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:29:37

And it's such a different mentality. I wish we had started off with a CRM from the get go. I wish that we had advertising and marketing and stuff all like been thinking about all those things right away. I feel like today's generation of young entrepreneurs are so lucky. Oh my gosh. Because there's this wealth of resources that just didn't exist back then. Like, we were just trying to figure it out the hard way. And about 3 years into our business, we went to our first convention, and our minds were completely blown, like the whole concept of like systems and all these other things.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:30:14

And I kept thinking, well, why do I need this? I this is for you. This is working for me, I can remember the name of every single client I have. That only works when you're this small. And then to carry all the information into a much bigger platform and try to make it work. It's like a whole machine. And it's so much easier to build your machine when you're tiny. It's infinitely more difficult when you're already big and you're unwittingly creating systems, even though you don't think you are, you are, and then trying to adapt them to later. So I wish we would have invested more in our business and in ourselves from that get go, which would have saved us a lot of grief later on.

Melody [: 00:30:56

I totally feel that. I remember my first business that I bought was just thousands of paper receipts, a van, some buckets, and a paper calendar that told me what jobs we did, and a phone number in the phone book. So the company was a one because you wanted to be first in the phone book, but it was spelled adash0ne so that it was fancy. So

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:31:20

Yeah. We had one of those big office depot calendars. Yeah. And we were right in there. And then we would have the Excel sheet that just said the name of the client, like what their service was and how much it was. Yes. It felt like Google Calendar was like a miracle or something.

Melody [: 00:31:34

I know. So the hardest thing I've ever endured, it's probably not, but I have a bad memory, was moving all of my people to a CRM. It was so much work and such a nightmare. And these young youngsters nowadays, they just don't know how good they have it with all of their YouTubes and all of these conferences.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:31:56

But to be fair, I feel like we probably had way more easy than the people who came like 20 years before us who like, maybe didn't even have like a website or, or any of that or cell phones.

Melody [: 00:32:12

I mean, I started in 2004 or 5, I bought my business, and there was no website. There was a cell phone, but the old fashioned kind, and I still have to answer the phone at home. A kind of either easy or hard question for you. What do you think the purpose of businesses outside of like money?

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:32:31

Business to me is about birth and creation. So I feel like every business is there because it addresses a problem. And problems are how creation is is made really. So just like I love cooking and the art of it, I feel like business itself is an art, where you're kind of creating this beautiful something from absolutely nothing. And every business that I've created, we didn't buy it. We started from like 0 clients

Melody [: 00:33:04

Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:33:04

And just made it. And it could have gone, you know, a lot of different ways. And you try something here, it doesn't quite work, and so you paint over it, you go over here. And there's just something to me that's really exhilarating about steering and creating this thing that you've created all on your own. I feel like it's so different from working for someone else. When you're working for someone else, you're just doing what they've asked you to do. Sometimes you're part of their creation process. But a lot of times, you're not necessarily you're waiting for like, you know, that 2% raise or whatever it is.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:33:40

You're clocking in, you're clocking out, you do get a lot of free time at the end of the day, because you don't have to worry about it. But I think just being able to have that creative control, to me is just it's amazing.

Melody [: 00:33:53

Yeah. I totally agree because I'm a creator. That's my favorite part of business, which is also I think the hardest part is creating it in those first couple of years, making it come together. It's like the hardest work and also really rewarding, I think.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:34:15

Of your life.

Melody [: 00:34:21

So, Sarah, what happened in 2021?

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:34:25

I guess it's technically from before then. So we had started our service business in 2015 and had immediately started doing Christmas lights. And we had no idea what we were doing the 1st year. Like that very 1st year, we bought Home Depot lights. 2nd year, we wised up and we were we replaced them all at our own expense. But that 1st year, we really didn't know what we were doing. There wasn't a whole lot online about how to do everything yet. And all I knew was that I needed to fake it till I made it.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:34:57

So I would show up in a cute little business suit to the client's home. I would have a mock up done like on Photoshop. I'd have like, samples of wreaths to show them all this stuff. They loved it. They ate it up. It was great. Right? So this personal consultation from this very artsy person. Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:35:18

But that was completely unsustainable. Yep. And so I just found myself having these really long hours, spending tons of time on things, missing things with my kid, with my husband, and it just getting to the point where I thought something has gotta give. I am literally at a breaking point, staying up till 3, 4 in the morning, then getting up at 6, and then still trying to do everything. Mhmm. And so a couple years before HHC, I had an accident. It was one of those things where I was working so much, I was exhausted. I fell Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:35:50

From a considerable height. And it took me weeks to get back to normal. I had some severe whiplash. I was losing my vision a lot, and I thought I've gotta do something else because I need to be the best person I can be for myself, for my family, and this is not it. And so I have been dreaming about a solution for Christmas because I could thought like I could handle the rest of the stuff. Right? Yeah. An assistant and all this other stuff, but Christmas depended so much on me still. I just couldn't delegate it.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:36:20

People couldn't figure out my system. They didn't have the same thing with the client repertoire that I did.

Melody [: 00:36:26

Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:36:26

They didn't know how to look at a house and just say, like, that's 235 feet. They just didn't have the eye for it yet.

Melody [: 00:36:33

They're not designers. You were a designer.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:36:36

Exactly. And they're not good at guesstimating because I didn't work along. Right? Yeah. So I was we'd hired a childhood friend who's a business consultant. And I was talking to him one day and I said, You know, Andrew, I've always thought about a way to make this Christmas light process faster. And this is something I've been thinking about for years. And I think if there was something like this out there, it would just help me and so many people. And he said, Why don't you do it? And I said, Because I'm not a computer programmer.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:37:07

And he said, Well, you don't need to be 1, you can hire 1. And I thought, isn't that gonna be like, crazy and just exorbitant? How am I gonna afford something like that? And he said, well, listen, let's get a couple of quotes. Let's talk to some people and see if it's something in your purview, like, if you can do this or not. And so after we got back the numbers, we looked at them and even though it's gonna take a little bit of sacrifice from us, and we brought like my parents into it, my brothers, we were like, we can do this. And so the initial version of Holiday Home Concepts was just supposed to be a concept software. It wasn't even supposed to be released. But when we sent it out for beta testing with a variety of people, as soon as their beta testing time was done, they're saying, can we sign up right now? And we're like, are you sure it's like really buggy still? Like, we don't care. This is the only thing and the best thing that there is out there.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:38:02

And so we started making revisions and getting it ready for market. And we launched it and pushed it out. And it still had, you know, some issues that 1st year, most of which, you know, we spent so much time fixing and putting into. But that 1st year, we ended up with 150 users, and we made back all of the money that we put into it, which was incredible.

Melody [: 00:38:25

That's amazing.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:38:27

Usually with SaaS software asset

Melody [: 00:38:29

I was gonna say it. Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:38:31

It's basically software. You usually don't make it back in the 1st year. And so the fact that we did was a huge telling to us that we are on the right track, that there is a market for this. And so we literally put all that money we made the 1st year, and we put it right back into development. And we invested more into it. And we did a 2.0 version. And that looked amazing. But it still wasn't quite where we wanted it to be.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:38:57

So then we took the profits from the next year. And we hired a programmer out of Silicon Valley. And he did a complete rewrite for us and we love it and it's beautiful. And now we're working on the next things to make it better. I think one of the things I learned a lot in terms of just business, especially when it comes to software, is that innovation is key. So we always have tabs on like, what is that user wanting? How can we improve? How can we make it better? And we're going to continue progressively to do so. I like to say innovate or die, Because ultimately, there's going to be someone behind you, who's creating the exact same thing with you. I even had someone this last year who subscribed for 1 month, unsubscribed to start his own company.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:39:44

And he's created, like, a general thing on the website that's not really up yet saying, oh, we're gonna have this, this, this, and this, and he's trying to make it look exactly like HHC. Mhmm. And so you're going to have people who do that, but that's also part of success in itself. We are sometimes victims of our own success. So do I get upset about it? Or do I continue to innovate and make what we do even more better, even more usable, have more features, and we're gonna be that much further ahead at the end of the day?

Melody [: 00:40:14

Can we get upset for a minute and then move because I get upset about it sometimes. I'm not gonna lie. When not about your software, but about when people are taking some of my because it's like our brain work. Right? You're working so hard. I know software, for the friends that develop it or have created software, it is like, for me, that feels scary to develop a software because I see how much work goes into it. Yeah. And also just reinvesting. I've done the same thing with my business.

Melody [: 00:40:46

I just reinvest and continue to invest because I believe in this thing so much. That's like the scary part of entrepreneurship, I think, is that we're investing so much time, so much energy, we put our love and our heart into this thing. Could it be taken away? But what I found is it really can't because we are probably, I know I am and you are, we're always thinking ahead, And they're not us. They're not thinking, like, people who are innovators, they you're right. They'll be copied, but they'll never be on that level.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:41:18

Yeah. And not only that, but it's like, okay, just from what I've seen, you know, for what they do or whatever. Yeah. Are they gonna have a few $100,000 to get it to the level that we have it at now? Maybe at some point. But I feel the same way about service business. There's enough business for us all. There's more than once out there, for example, and yet, you know, multiple ones are thriving. So we all have our different markets, we all can tailor ourselves our different way.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:41:46

But one of my favorite, I posted a video recently, but that the premise of it was never compete in a price war, compete on other things, but not a price war. And so if you're gonna compete on it, compete on how you're better, what distinguishes you and makes you different than what your competitors competitor is doing? Does it make me upset that he essentially like that, okay, inventory manager, estimator, let's see, okay, measurement tool with extrapolation and we took exactly and that even his interface, the way he's designing it has our color scheme. Yes, it does. Yeah. But that being said, I have something he doesn't. And that is the connections that I have within our industry. That is my genuine spirit that is coming across, whether it be in a podcast with you or with somebody else. And having those conversations, it's software so much more than than the user experience.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:42:42

It's the customer experience.

Melody [: 00:42:44

Yes. You have to have both.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:42:45

It is that journey from birth to all the way through that life of your client. And then what does that look like for them?

Melody [: 00:42:52

Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:42:52

I talked to another really successful entrepreneur. And he said, Listen, there is no guarantee that you are going to be in business 10 years from now, whether you're HHC or Home Service or yang or whatever else, it doesn't matter. Because ultimately, you carry you with you. And you've learned really important things that even if you started a whole other business right now, you'd be like, miles ahead of when you first started your old business, because you have all this knowledge, you have all these things, you take that with you. It's not like you suddenly lost it, it just means that you would invest yourself into something else. And so that I think should be our leading force to grow without necessarily the fear. Do we need to be aware of problems in the market or things that could threaten us? Sure. Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:43:42

But we shouldn't let that keep us from growing and succeeding where we are now.

Melody [: 00:43:48

Yeah. I totally agree with you on that. I think sometimes when I've really struggled is when I let Facebook or social media sometimes, If I'm leaving things up and I'm seeing all the things, I have found that it gets really hard. I get inside of my head. I don't feel like I'm doing good enough. People are using all sorts of other companies, and I get small mindset. And so I literally just hide a lot of people, so that I can just focus on what we're doing and where my heart is at. Like I never wanted to compete with anybody to begin with.

Melody [: 00:44:22

My goal is to work with as many purpose driven business owners as I can, because those are my people, right? And so if I'm looking at what other people are doing, and like you said, there's so much work for everybody. But it feels like when you've invested so much of yourself, it can be easy sometimes to feel like somebody's taking it all of your hard work and just putting it into something else, but it's never that easy. And they're gonna have a lot of their own struggles, of course, and it's not your thing.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:44:51

And you'd be surprised about how different your markets actually are.

Melody [: 00:44:55

Yeah.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:44:55

I'm a strong proponent of being friends with your competitors

Melody [: 00:44:59

Agree.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:44:59

As much as you possibly can be. So, like, for our service business, we help, like, run a window cleaning advocacy group, and we have, like, chapters in different areas. Yeah. And so some of those competitors that are in our group that live in our area, we have lent them ladders, they have lent us people. I mean, like we hung out with each other and stuff like that, and we're better together. We help each other to reach new levels. One of my favorite, favorite competitors in this industry is Zach over at Tencent CRM. That guy is amazing.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:45:32

Yeah, I

Melody [: 00:45:33

love Zach. He's one of my clients too.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:45:35

We have kind of different markets, like he's more of a CRM. I'm more of a design estimation tool. And we often refer people to each other all the time. But at the same time, I feel like we are very much on the same wavelength in terms of the kind of service we wanna bring to people and where our heart is, and I love working with him. I think he's fantastic. I mean, not everyone is gonna be a great person to work with, obviously, but I I do think you can get so much more out of having that togetherness.

Melody [: 00:46:08

It's the collaboration.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:46:10

Yeah. I think a lot of people get into this mindset of I can't exist in the same space as somebody else and that's just not true.

Melody [: 00:46:17

Okay. We've come to the end of this time together. And I've got one last thing, which is just, I think I call it the misfit minute. I'm gonna start right now. Early bird or night owl?

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:46:29

I am a night owl for sure.

Melody [: 00:46:31

Introvert or extrovert?

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:46:33

Both. Usually an introvert, but I can push myself to be an extrovert when I need to.

Melody [: 00:46:38

More time or more money?

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:46:40

I feel like time and money actually have a relationship where money can buy you time.

Melody [: 00:46:46

You're going deep. Saver or spender? Saver. Workaholic or recovering workaholic?

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:46:54

Oh, man. I wanna be a recovering workaholic, but I think I'm solidly in a workaholic right now. Though I have aspirations for the other.

Melody [: 00:47:03

Seasons of our life. Right? Adventure or relaxing?

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:47:08

I'm definitely a relaxing person, though I wish I was more of an adventurer.

Melody [: 00:47:13

Things or experiences? Experiences. Phone calls or texts? Text. Plan ahead or go with the flow?

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:47:24

Oh my gosh. I have a planner to let like spreadsheets.

Melody [: 00:47:28

I figure with the software, you have to do a lot of planning for that. Hands on or delegate?

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:47:34

I'm doing better with delegation than I was. I think I'm still stuck on some things being hands on, but hopefully, I'll be a heavy delegator more so in the future.

Melody [: 00:47:44

Always a work in progress. Compete or collaborate? Collaborate. Sweet or savory?

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:47:52

Savory. Quick thinker or over thinker? Over thinker. Yeah. Sure.

Melody [: 00:47:57

If you have to think about it. You did it. That was it. And you won the award for finishing the test. You're the best. You know that I think that about you. You've been a business misfit for a long time now. I think I told you were a long time ago, and then I'm like, you're my friend now.

Melody [: 00:48:15

And I just really appreciate you, your spirit. You're so kind, and thank you for being here.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:48:22

Thank you for having me. I mean, I can't tell you how much it means to connect with another woman in business who's on like the same wavelength in that way. I feel like it's so easy for people to be dismissive or cabbie with one another or like that overly competitive thing. And I feel like the second you and I met, we were just like straight up vibing. Yeah,

Melody [: 00:48:43

we were.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:48:45

I love it. I love every time I get to see you and get to hang out with you.

Melody [: 00:48:48

Yeah, well, we will do it again soon. I'm sure. Well, thank you so much. I will see you in the future.

Sarah van der Meer [: 00:48:54

Sounds good. Thanks, everyone.

Melody [: 00:48:56

Listen, Bizfit. If you believe in the mission of this podcast, I need you to like and subscribe right now. Pause this. Go find the podcast. You might already be there, which is easy. Just go like and subscribe. And if you really, really believe in it and you want Bizfits to unite and change the whole business world, please rate it. Rating is the best way to get the word out to attract more like minded misfits like you and me so that we can overthrow the takers of this world who currently dominate the business universe.

Melody [: 00:49:24

Now I know I sound like I'm some courageous lady of business. I am not. I can't do this alone, and I don't want to. I need you, and we need a coalition of fellow Bizfits. So do it now. The quicker we take action, the quicker we can change our business world. Now let's go do great things and I will see you next week.